Chapter Sixty-Eight
ADRIAN
Adrian frowned. ‘What?!’
Elara took two strides towards him. ‘I asked, what the fuck is a Star—the consort of Scorpius—doing with her legs wrapped around you, naked?
‘El,’ Enzo murmured behind her. Adrian blinked up, seeing him approach from the shadows. She raised a hand to him.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Elara,’ Adrian said.
Had the madness returned? Was there something the healers had missed? Cancia?
He quickly rejected the very idea. There was no way in—
‘Adrian, we both saw her.’
‘No,’ he whispered. ‘The story, she—’
Silver hair. The glimpse of it he had seen when she was saving him. But many mermaids had silver hair, didn’t they?
‘Adrian, I’m going to need you to say something,’ Elara said. ‘Because if it turns out you’re a traitor who has been working with the Stars all along, then no immortality will stop me from killing you.’
Adrian gulped as he looked wildly between Enzo and Elara.
It was Enzo, to Adrian’s absolute shock, who crouched before him, a far gentler look in his eyes than in Elara’s. ‘I know her charm, Adrian. I called on her favour once long ago. Her magick coats this rock.’
‘I-I wasn’t with Cancia. I was with a mermaid called Oceanne. She…she saved me from Scorpius.’
He was panicking now as memories flitted through his mind. Her speaking of being trapped, the story she’d told of a life long ago, and…the aquamarine light. Light he had thought was his. But…what if it had been her starlight?
‘Oh, I’m going to kill her,’ he growled. A Star? He had kissed a Star? One who had lied to him, who was the consort of his worst enemy? She had lured him in and deceived him with her siren charm to…what? To find Elara and Enzo? To feed information back to her poisonous lover?
He felt sick, passing a trembling hand over his face.
‘What do you think?’ Elara murmured to Enzo. He nodded.
‘I trust him. He didn’t know—look at him.’
Elara did and, fucking hell, Adrian realized he really, really didn’t want to get on her bad side if this was what a mere look could illicit in him. Her eyes were terrifying, alight with unspoken threats.
‘You’d better not have,’ she said.
‘I didn’t fucking know!’ he shouted.
‘Watch your tone,’ Enzo warned.
Adrian let out an exasperated sigh as he scrambled up. ‘I swear to you both I didn’t know who she was. I’ve never once seen her face.’
‘And you didn’t think that was odd?’ Elara said incredulously.
‘I thought she was a fucking mermaid! You know the stories of the salt, don’t you?’
‘Oh gods,’ Elara said faintly. ‘Did you sleep with her?’
‘No!’ Adrian replied scornfully. ‘We only kissed. And a little more.’
Enzo snorted.
Elara softened, clearly seeing his expression, and squeezed his arm. ‘Did you tell her anything? Anything that could be used against us?’
Adrian shook his head. ‘No,’ he swore. ‘I only spoke about myself. My…my feelings.’ He readied himself for ridicule, but Enzo and Elara only looked at him earnestly. ‘And the Dark. It seemed as though she was as worried about it as we are.’
Elara exchanged glances with Enzo. ‘Speaking of—I think you’d best come back. It’s about time Eli spoke plainly with us.’
Her face was grave as she turned back to the lighthouse, Enzo and Adrian following.